Friday, February 1, 2013

Dennis Prager: American Values

3 comments:

The commentator spoke far too soon about the hysteria over the suicide bomber in Turkey. The bomber turned out to be a left-wing terrorist, and not a sign of any shift to fundamentalism in Turkey.

While Turkey's AKP government is Islamic in nature, it is far too simplistic to lump Turkey and it's government into a general threatening Islamist category. This is an unfortunate Manichean tendency that should be resisted. The world is complex. Nations are complex. Canada is complex and so is a country like Turkey.

I have spent considerable time within Turkey, and speaking as a white conservative Canuck, I find portrayals of the country such as this at odds with the reality. Turkey may have its problems, but the country itself is not remotely a problem to us. The population at large finds suicide bombing as abhorrent as we do. It is far better to regard them as an ally, avoiding needlessly alienating them for questionable reasons.

Yeah Erdogan said that, before he was PM, and it landed him in jail for 4 months. Still doesn't mean the Turks, Erdogan or no, are joining an Islamist bloc in alliance against the Canada or the west. Since being PM there is little indication of any radical shift of policy. They still view their Middle Eastern neighbours with suspicion and disdain. They have no reason at all to leave NATO.

Sure, domestically I wouldn't want the secular nature of Turkey changed if I was a Turk. And I would keep an eye on Erdogan. However, there is little indication of anything like what goes on in the rest of the Middle East. Authoritarianism a la Russia is more of a threat than Arab\Afghan\Iran style fervour. I don't think that is happening either.

JR on:

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"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -- C. S. Lewis